Chapter 13: Evolution as a Leader
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Description
After observing that physicians rarely have specific preparation to serve as leaders, Dr. Dmitrovsky discusses key moments in his own development as a leader. He notes that he became a department chair in his forties, a relatively young age. He says that he had opportunities to learn negative leadership lessons by observing others. He also learned to reach out to individuals with great leadership skills to learn directly from them. He talks about a mentor, James Wright, former president of Dartmouth College.
Identifier
DmitrovskyE_02_20150506_C13
Publication Date
5-6-2015
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Professional Path; Personal Background; Professional Path; Influences from People and Life Experiences; Professional Values, Ethics, Purpose; Professional Practice; Leadership; Mentoring; On Leadership; On Mentoring
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, yeah. And that's that's pretty amazing. I mean, it's a recurring theme, actually, in the interviews when people, particularly of a certain generation, say when they've assumed positions of leaderships, they had no training. And so they had to seek it out on their own, and then there were few programs they could go to.
Ethan Dmitrovsky, MD:
Or they learned on the job, which is the least effective way.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, yeah. Sort of more dramatic stories, perhaps, but least effective. (laughter)
Ethan Dmitrovsky, MD:
So yeah, I never had any of those resources as I became an academic leader, and I felt that that was not a prudent path to have for anyone. So I've made these resources available. They've been large investments we've made in every individual leader. As you can imagine, these are not revenue neutral. They require sizable investments. But I think they're really they're very wise investments that the institution is making. Not that I'm making, that the institution is.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Tell me a little bit about some key moments in your own development as a leader. You know, what are some moments of a-ha, or lessons learned that were really important for forming who you are now as a leader?
Ethan Dmitrovsky, MD:
Well, that's a great question. I wish I had a crisp answer. (laughter)
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Un-crisp answers are OK too. (laughter)
Ethan Dmitrovsky, MD:
I can tell you I mentioned that I hadn't been formally trained as a leader. And I became a department chair at a relatively young age. I was in my early forties. And I learned this might surprise you the most about leadership from not good examples, but from the opposite. And so I saw a number of leaders, academic leaders, whose behaviors towards others I didn't want to I didn't want to respect or want to emulate. And I'm really grateful to them for what they've taught me. And so I saw many more examples of that than of the servant leader. And so I thought that I would try my level best as to not emulate some of the bad behaviors that I saw, or less favorable behaviors that I saw. And I was fortunate to have had some striking examples of less than effective leadership. And they were great learning opportunities, and so I decided to not follow in some of the footsteps that I saw. And that was an a-ha moment. And the other was an appreciation of how when you do find someone who has great leadership skills, to have a foresight to reach out to them, and develop a working relationship with them so you can learn directly from them. And I had some rare individuals who I met in my career who I thought were remarkably effective leaders. And I have sought to emulate them.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Do you feel comfortable sharing their names as influences?
Ethan Dmitrovsky, MD:
When I was asked to be the interim dean of the medical school at Dartmouth, I was asked to do this by the former president of Dartmouth, James Wright. And he was a very model example of the servant leader who had come up through the faculty. He was an historian. He'd been on the faculty at Dartmouth for 31 years when I met him, and had risen through the academic ranks, from a tenured professor. And he had a very historical view of an institution, and thought in terms of positions made in terms of the positive influence it would have far beyond his tenure. And so I met someone who taught me how to think about decision making, not in the near term, but the long term. And it was because he viewed institutions from the prism the lens, rather of an historian's view. I thought that was an incredible way to look at leadership, and to and he, himself, had made some decisions that were controversial to the faculty and student body who were there at the time. But he always told me how confident he was in the long run, that he was making the right decision for the institution in the long run. So that, he and I worked closely together, and I thought he taught me and I tried to learn from him that an institutional leader should make the right decisions for the institution, whenever they were asked to make a decision but never do so from the short term, and never consider the political ramifications. And so he was, to my mind, remarkable, because he would make decisions that he thought was best for the institution, and he absolutely was adored the institution. Even if it were decisions that would personally reduce the regard he would have by others in the short run. But he was confident he was making a decision that would be helpful to the entire institution over the long run. And I thought that was an incredibly valuable lesson, and I tried to do that in my own career.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
We have about five minutes left today. And I have lots of long-answer questions left to ask you, but (laughter)
Ethan Dmitrovsky, MD:
Yeah. Well, we could make try to do one less long session, if we could sort of keep it less than, you know, an hour, you know?
Recommended Citation
Dmitrovsky, Ethan MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 13: Evolution as a Leader" (2015). Interview Chapters. 648.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/648
Conditions Governing Access
Open
